Athenaion
About
Builders set this temple on the highest ground in the city and blended two architectural orders in a single design, running Ionic details along a Doric frame. Finished around 500 BCE, it is the smallest and latest of Paestum's three great temples. Excavators found dozens of small terracotta statuettes of Athena buried near its altar, evidence strong enough to overturn its old mislabeling as a temple of Ceres. Christians later used its cella as a church without tearing the columns down.
What happened here
The building itself is a house for the god, and most people never go inside. Everything public happens on the steps and at the altar in front: an animal led up, examined, killed cleanly, its organs read, the meat divided and eaten. The priest covers his head and a flute player keeps up a noise so no ill-omened word is heard. Worshippers leave what they can afford — a terracotta figure, a coin, a model of the body part they want healed — and the accumulated clutter is periodically cleared and buried on site. On festival days the doors are opened and the cult statue is dressed, garlanded, and sometimes carried out through the streets. The temple also holds money, which is why towns keep their treasury in one.
Sources
Nearby
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